


better days

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2011 Phan, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression, brief mention of vomiting, mention of illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 07:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19329988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: dan is sick. phil tries to take care of him





	better days

Dan is coughing so hard he can’t finish the sentence he was in the middle of speaking. Phil has to pull the phone away from his ear because the sound of it is so loud, like Dan’s hacking right into the receiver.

It’s a cough that won’t seem to go away, but instead of improving it only seems to be getting worse. He’s been vaguely ill for what feels like ages, in fact when Phil tries to pin down the last time Dan wasn’t feeling poorly, he can’t actually do it. Was it some time in the summer?

“Fuck,” Dan says weakly, once he’s caught his breath. “Ow.”

“That sounds really bad,” Phil tells him.

“Feels it too. I’m meant to be in class right now.”

Phil doesn’t say that he doubts Dan would be in class whether he was ill or not - some truths are better kept behind a bitten tongue. “D’you want to come round here?” he asks instead.

“Maybe later.”

Phil feels the sting of that despite it being perfectly reasonable. Dan’s sick. Of course he doesn’t want to get out of bed and take a bus or a taxi across the city. He’d be liable to cough up a lung or something.

It’s just that Dan doesn’t usually give a toss about what’s reasonable when it comes to Phil, and perhaps, Phil realizes, he has gotten a bit too used to that, to Dan wanting to be with him all the time no matter what the circumstances.

“Ok.” He tries not to betray himself with any kind of tone.

“I just feel really shite,” Dan says. His voice is thin and tired. “My stomach hurts and I feel like I’m gonna sick everywhere. Don’t wanna pass my plague on to you.”

“I don’t mind,” Phil says, against his better judgement. Admittedly that often takes leave of him when matters of Dan are concerned. Perhaps they’re both a little unreasonable about each other, but Phil had been under the impression that that was what set them apart from everyone else.

“Later,” Dan repeats himself. “Just need a sleep, maybe. I’m so cold and tired.”

“If you’re sure…”

Dan coughs again. “I’ll speak to you later.”

“Oh.” Phil stomach suddenly feels all wobbly. “You meant now.”

“I think I have a fever or something,” Dan says. “I’m shivering a bit.”

“Dan, maybe you should go to the doctor again. It doesn’t seem like those tablets are working at all.”

“Just need to sleep,” he insists. “I’ll ring you later.”

Phil pushes down all the feelings of anxiety and inadequacy as best he can and says, “You better. Love you.”

Dan mumbles a, “You too,” before the other end of the line goes dead and Phil is forced to hang up with a brick in his throat.

-

Dan doesn’t ring him later. He doesn’t text either. The day passes without another word from him, though Phil ends up ringing and texting a lot. Like, way too much. So much that he’ll be embarrassed about it later, so much that he’ll probably not sleep tonight for worrying that suddenly he’s the clingy one.

Not that he won’t be worrying about other things too, like if Dan coughed himself to death before he could bring himself to compose a goodbye text or if he passed out in the loo when trying to take a wee after his nap and cracked his skull open on the toilet.

… Or that he’s spending his night with someone else.

That one is irrational and he’s well aware, but it doesn’t stop the thought from worming itself into his brain. Dan’s at uni now, living in a hall with a bunch of other people the same age as him. Phil remembers what that felt like, the way there always seemed to be alcohol around, the way everyone hooked up with everyone. He’s quite sure that’s not what’s happening, and it makes him feel guilty to be relieved that the truth is surely just that Dan feels so poorly that he’s slept the whole day away.

-

Phil finally falls asleep sometime after he’s googled Dan’s symptoms, and mercifully before he’s gone mental enough to hop in a cab and head to the school at half four in the morning.

When he wakes up his heart lurches to see a billion and one texts from Dan on his phone. He reads only enough to have his worst fears negated before he types in Dan’s number and prays he’ll pick up this time.

He does, sounding like a shell of himself. “Hey.”

“You sound worse.”

“I feel worse. I need the toilet but my stomach hurts so bad I don’t wanna move.”

Phil sits up in bed, trying not to let the annoying part of himself that immediately assumes death is imminent win out. “Can you come here?”

Dan doesn’t answer. Phil can hear him breathing so he knows he’s still on the line. Dan coughs and Phil waits, his stomach turning to stone when Dan finally says, “I don’t want to.”

“Are you gonna make me go there?” Phil threatens. “Because I will.”

“I think I’m fine. I’m just ill.”

Phil frowns. “So let me take care of you.”

“No.”

“Dan, what the hell?”

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Dan says in a very small, very sad voice.

Phil throws the duvet off his legs. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

-

Phil brings gatorade and cough medicine and the green York hoodie Dan loves to wear. Dan puts it on and takes the medicine and drinks the gatorade and it doesn’t make Phil feel any better because Dan looks like absolute hell. His hair is unwashed and his eyes are cradled by half moon bruises that contradict the amount of sleep he’s been getting. He looks thin. Gaunt even, and he shivers even beneath the hoodie and the duvet of his tiny little dorm room bed.

Phil climbs in next to him even though there’s not enough room, spooning himself against the back of Dan’s body and stroking Dan’s arm as he coughs. When Dan falls asleep Phil pulls out his phone again and googles the symptoms and tries not to panic about the fact that all signs lead to infection.

He shouldn’t still have an infection. He’s been taking antibiotics for nearly a week.

He strokes Dan’s stringy fringe off his face and gasps inaudibly at how hot Dan’s skin is against the tips of his fingers. He lays his palm flat against Dan’s forehead and it’s sweaty and burning and Dan shivers in his sleep, not roused in the slightest by the way Phil is touching him.

He just looks so young and helpless lying there curled up in a ball, face pinched in discomfort even in unconsciousness. Phil feels just as small as Dan looks, so he does what he always does when he’s overwhelmed and the world feels a little too scary to manage on his own: he calls his mum.

-

“Dan.” He squeezes Dan’s shoulder gently, not wanting to wake him in the frantic way his nerves tell him to. “Dan, wake up.”

Dan’s frown deepens and his voice is barely more than a croak. “What?”

“You have to get up.”

“Why?”

“I think we should go to hospital.”

Dan opens his eyes just to give Phil a clearly disapproving look. “I’m not doing that.”

“Why not?” The hysteria is starting to bleed through the calm facade. “I reckon something is actually wrong.”

Dan curls up like he’s rejecting Phil’s assertion, rolling away and pulling the blanket up under his chin. He shakes his head. “M’fine.”

“You’re clearly not, Dan. You’ve got to get up, there’s a taxi on the way already.”

“Cancel it,” Dan says bluntly. “Or make it take you home.”

Phil feels that like a punch to the gut. “Dan. What’s going on? Talk to me.” He pulls at Dan’s shoulder, forcing him to roll over so he can look at his face.

There are tears there. “Dan.”

-

They miss that first taxi. It comes and eventually goes before Phil manages to persuade Dan to tell him exactly what’s wrong, and even then Dan can’t say the words until his face is buried in Phil’s shoulder.

Dan is in pain, real, genuine pain, but even more than that he’s embarrassed. He’s ashamed. He’s afraid. He doesn’t say as much, not explicitly, but Phil knows. Phil can tell, and it breaks his heart. He’s always fancied himself the one who could give Dan a reprieve from having to feel those kind of feelings.

He kisses Dan’s clammy temple and tells him it’s ok. It’s not his fault. It could happen to anyone and he doesn’t deserve to suffer for it.

He’s not sure if Dan believes it, but at least he nods weakly when Phil asks if they can please go get him checked out. He endures the anxiety of ringing for another car and helps Dan into his jeans while they wait.

-

The wait at A&E at Manchester Royal Infirmary is excruciating. They stick out like sore thumbs with their tight jeans and long hair, but they tuck themselves away in a corner and try not to make eye contact with any of the other patients, most of whom appear to be under the influence of any number of unfortunate substances.

Dan goes to the toilet twice, both times refusing to let Phil come with him and both times admitting afterwards that he’d vomited despite not remembering the last time he was able to eat anything. But they play games on Phil’s phone to pass the time, and a couple of times Phil is actually able to make Dan smile.

It’s hours before they’re taken to an exam room, and once they are, a nurse puts an IV needle in the back of Dan’s hand and Phil has to look away. He hates needles and he hates Dan in pain, and the combination is threatening to do him in.

He’s only allowed to stay until the doctor arrives. After that he’s asked to leave the room and has to stand outside awkwardly while Dan is left to endure a no doubt painful, invasive exam without Phil there to hold his hand and remind him that he’s not alone.

Dan is nearly in tears when Phil is allowed in the room again. He’s laid down on the exam bed wearing one of those open-backed gowns.  
He tries to sound stoic when he tells Phil he needs surgery and will have to stay the night.

“Did you ring your parents?” Phil asks.

Dan snorts. “Fuck that.”

“You’re really not going to?”

Dan looks at him with something maybe like anger, or at least some kind of disbelief that Phil even has to ask. Phil can’t fathom needing surgery and not ringing his mum, but looking at Dan’s face in light of that suggestion reminds him with stunning clarity that Dan is not him.

Dan hasn’t told him all the details. He’s said enough for Phil to understand that the relationship between Dan and his parents is strained to say the least, and Phil has felt that strain the handful of times he’d visited Dan in Wokingham, but it’s something Dan keeps close to the vest.

Phil has something of an epiphany in that moment: the Howells aren’t the people Dan wants to speak to when he needs support. It probably should have been obvious, but he supposes deep down he’d believed that crisis would override whatever issues lie at the core of that estrangement.

But Dan is not him. Dan’s parents are not Phil’s parents. And right now it’s clear that Phil is it; Phil is the one Dan needs to be brave.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, putting his hand on Dan’s hip.

Dan pushes it away, eyes darting to the door left slightly ajar after the doctor left. He sniffles loudly and clears his throat, a sure sign he’s trying to hide all the feelings threatening to make themselves known. “It’s not a big deal. They said it only takes like ten minutes.”

The question of whether or not Phil will stay with him overnight is not discussed. They don’t even think to ask. They’re not going to claim to be anything more than mates, and even if they did, they still aren’t family, so all Phil can do in the end is promise he’ll be back first thing in the morning and fight the urge to give him a hug before the nurse comes to collect him and bring him upstairs to his room.

-

Phil spends a second night in as many days not sleeping because he’s worrying about Dan. He’s trying to text, but his messages keeping coming back to him. There must not be any reception in Dan’s room.

It’s too late to ring his mum again. He’d already pushed it by doing it the first time, risked exposing what Dan really means to him by being more concerned than a mate probably should be. He could text Ian or Charlie or PJ, but he’s not sure his friends making him feel silly for being overprotective and clingy would make him feel better.

He can’t stop thinking about how helpless Dan had looked, and how even in that moment he’d pushed Phil away. He’d pushed him away as easily as he’d dismissed the idea of ringing his family.

He’s glad he made Dan take care of himself, though. That’s the only thought that eventually allows him to drift off to sleep. Dan might hate him for it for a little while, but he can’t bring himself to regret anything.

-

He sneaks some McDonald’s into hospital, and it’s the first he’s seen Dan smile properly in ages. It probably helps that he’s post-op now, and hopped up on the most amount of morphine that could legally be administered, but Phil doesn’t feel any less elated to see such an improvement in Dan’s mood. He pulls a chair up right beside Dan’s bed and takes a photo of Dan for posterity. Dan is too stoned to make much of a fuss, but Phil knows he’ll have to guard that photo later if he wants to keep it.

The nurses are in and out all day, monitoring Dan’s vitals and checking the incision site. Eventually he’s discharged with prescriptions for antibiotics, painkillers and opiates. They stop into the hospital pharmacy before they leave and along with the medications they buy the biscuits Phil knows Dan will need to have even a fighting chance of swallowing so many pills. Maybe Phil buys a chocolate bar or two as well, but he reckons they’ve both earned the right to some sweets.

Phil never asks Dan if he wants to go back to halls, he just takes him straight back to his flat.

Dan doesn’t argue.

He’s a different person now that the ordeal is mostly over. They sit on Phil’s sofa when they get back and Phil wraps his duvet around Dan’s shoulders. Dan curls himself up against Phil’s body and clings in a way Phil wishes didn’t make him feel quite so relieved. He clings back, kissing the top of Dan’s head and truly not giving a shit about how greasy his hair is.

Dan, in turn, leans in and kisses Phil’s cheek. “I missed you last night.”

Phil lifts his arm so he can put it around Dan’s blanketed shoulders. “Did you?”

Dan nods. “I kept looking at my phone hoping I’d get enough reception to talk to you.”

That makes Phil smile. “I sent you so many bloody texts that never got delivered.”

“They should have phones in hospital rooms,” Dan says. “I was paranoid you’d think bad things about why I wasn’t texting.”

“Dan.” Phil puts on his most gentle voice. “You should have been resting, not worrying about me.”

“The guy in the bed next to me was moaning all night. Literally. The only reason I didn’t jump out the window was the load of painkillers the nurse gave me.”

“I’m glad the pain was better at least. I was really worried.” Phil leans in again and noses into Dan’s hair, wondering if it’s wise to say the thing he’s thinking.

He says it anyway. “Thought you might have been cross with me.”

Dan sighs. “I knew you were weird when I left.”

“ _You_ were weird,” Phil says defensively.

Dan turns to give him a look that shuts him up immediately. “Can we just drop it?” Dan asks. “Please? I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“Ok.” Phil reaches for the remote and turns on the tv.

Dan doesn’t want to talk. That’s fine. Phil can understand that. These last few days have been shit for him. These last few weeks, really. Just because Phil’s mechanism for coping with things that are stressful is to talk it out doesn’t mean it’s the same for Dan.

Phil has blown most of his budget for spending money in the last few days alone, but he still has enough left for a Chinese takeaway, so he orders one and he and Dan eat the whole lot while sat cuddled up on the sofa watching reruns of Friends.

They don’t talk much, and not at all about the ordeal they’ve just endured, but when Dan opens his fortune cookie he laughs and holds it out for Phil to read.

_Better days are coming._

“D’you reckon?” Dan asks.

Phil frowns. He doesn’t like thinking that this time they spend together is time Dan spends being in pain or wishing for more.

He doesn’t always understand it, Dan’s pain. There are certain things he still keeps guarded, even from Phil, and Phil hasn’t figured out yet how to ask without making things worse.

So he doesn’t. Not tonight. Tonight he has to swallow the feeling of helplessness at not being able to cure Dan of memories that make him sad. Tonight all he can do is nod his head and try his best to be a part of making that fortune come true.


End file.
